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Abstract
This point-of-view commentary explores a selected range of issues relevant to alcoholic beverage drinking and nondrinking patterns documented by the AMPHORA European study which, with hind-sight, limits its generalizability, with fore-sight are generally inadequately considered and documented and, with ordinary insight, are not likely to affect the ongoing and future behaviors of policy making and sustaining stakeholders whatever their sources of influence and whatever the levels and quality of evidence-informed data, information, and derived knowledge.
Notes
2 Rates of obesity, defined as a a multi-factorial disease, and overweight in both male and females, based on a statistical modeling study presented at the EuroPRevent congress in Amsterdam, May 8–10, 2014, by Dr. Laura Webber from the UK Health Forum in London were projected to increase in almost all countries of Europe by 2030. The forecast male obesity levels varied throughout the 53 Euro-region countries, from 15% in the Netherlands and Belgium, to 47% in Ireland and for females from a low of 10% in Romania to 47% in Ireland—the same as for males. The study used all available data on body mass index (BMI) and obesity/overweight trends in all 53 of the WHO's Euro-region countries. A great deal of data. Dr. Webber noted that: “Our study presents a worrying picture of rising obesity across Europe. Policies to reverse this trend are urgently needed.” A call for policies can be seen as being a magic bullet without the necessary delineation for their effectiveness, albeit the United Nations calling for a whole-of-society approach to preventing obesity. http://scienceblog.com/72312/most-europeans-to-be-fatties-by-2030/#PtzvBR4YF4ot9yLW.99 downloaded 5/9/14.
3 Personal communication with Dr. Allamani 5/10/14.
4 Mead, the outcome of naturally fermenting honey, was a much earlier food-beverage, posited to exist during Neolithic times, than grape-fermented wine and its subsequent vini-culture. http://desrochersd. com/en/products/mead-is-nature-civilized
5 I would greatly appreciate receiving materials from readers about successful prohibitions of alcoholic beverages, as well as of any other human “appetitive” behaviors.
6 The reader is referred to Tilly, Charles (2006). Why. Princeton Univ. Press. Princeton, NJ for a stimulating analysis about generic “causative” reasons given in the West.
7 There are layers to this question which the reader can explore in AMPHORA Workpackage3 (2013) Report of an analysis of European alcohol-related cultural, social, and policy interactions and their impact on alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm http://amphoraproject.net/w2box/data/Deliverables/AMPHORA_WP3_D3.2. pdf). which Dr. Allamani pointed out to me when he reviewed this paper. The first layer notes that alcoholic beverage consumption changes cannot be adequately explained through policies, but rather through considering the country specificities. The second layer clearly notes that no country should be asked (as in fact it is) to simply apply norms provided by international bodies, like WHO, or by well known “alcohol experts” which are based on studies carried out in countries characterized by specific drinking patterns and their documented drinking-related harms (Scandinavian, North American, New Zealand, and Australian countries). See AMPHORA Report, Part 1, The Study and the Method, Introduction, 1.1 Drinking trends and alcohol policies. Diversity is a reality as are environmental and cultural sensitivity and as is a growing trend of conceptual colonialism.
8 The cyberneticist Heinz Von Foerster posited that there are two types of questions; legitimate and illegitimate ones. The former are those for which the answers are not known, and are, perhaps, even unknowable during a given state of knowledge, technology, and stakeholder-influenced research—the effective control of man's “appetite” for a range of psychoactive substances, whatever their legal status. An illegitimate question is one for which the answer is known, or, at the very least is consensualized enabling the creation of a state of temporary or more permanent query-closure. The quest within a question becomes quaranteed. The asking of illegitimate questions has been, and remains, by and large, the acculturated norm. Heinz Von Foerster, Patricia M. Mora, and Lawrence W. Amiot (1960), “Doomsday; Friday, 13 November, A.D, 2026,” Science, 132, 1960. pp. 1291–1295. The reader is referred to Pablo Neruda's (1991) The Book of Questions for a poetic exploration of legitimate questions.
9 Alcoholic beverage control policy enforcement, was discussed in the project planning panel (See AMPHORA Report, Appendix, 3. Planned, 5. http://amphoraproject.net/w2box/data/Deliverables/AMPHORA_WP3_D3.2.pdf). The decision was not to include tjis complex process in the study because it was considered impossible to quantify it. Private communication with Dr. Allamani 5/5/14. This limitation was acknowledged in Allamani, Pepe, Baccini et al, Study limitations. In: Europe. An analysis of changes in the consumption of alcoholic beverages…. SUM this sp issue: “The issue of the measured being possibly more or less enforced was not taken into account, so that the differences in country relationships between policies and both consumption and harm could be attributed to different enforcement of policies. “The challenges arising in the misleading battles between either/or, qualitative or quantitative, planned policies or unplanned other factors, are not new. Hammurabi in his well-known policy Code took both “measurements” into consideration; quantity for human awareness, expectation, perception, and judgment and quality in the final policy based decision: Law 108: “if a tavern-keeper (female; an unplanned non-policy in those days was that men made war and woman made beer) does not accept corn according to gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown into the water”; a euphemism for drowned. After Hammurabi's death, the drowning policy was replaced with the mutilation of the offending woman's breasts. Hammurabi was concerned (??paranoid??) that his subjects, for whom beer was available and accessible, would meet in beer halls—a central meeting place for everyday people which could be/become a hotbed of sedition—and plot against his authority. This led to Law 109: “if conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court the tavern-keeper shall be put to death.” The favored method of execution was to drown the adjudicated offender in a barrel of her own beer. I have not been able to find generalizable data about the implementation–enforcement–effectiveness of this policy. http://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/hammurabi-first-king-of-beer downloaded 5/5/14
10 A common research associated process and outcome in which people, and organized systems, filter out data-results, information, and knowledge which challenge and/or contradict our preconceptions; our sacred cows.
11 The reader is referred to the essay by Japanese novelist Jun'ichiro Tanizaki (2013) In Praise of Shadows NYC: Random House for a most stimulating explication about going beyond uni-dimensional “black and white..” which is all-too-often the presented reality of alcohol policy makers, stakeholders, and a range of associated researchers. The current repeated policy “happening” of what might be called a diversity-insensitive “conceptual colonialism” in which research findings from one region-country–culture–context–situation–discipline–weltanschaung is marketed as being THE generic paradigm is an example of this.
12 The reader is asked to consider that in the area of substance use public policy, including alcohol control statutes, regulations and laws, that sunset clauses do not exist. This measure provides that the law shall cease to be in affect after a specific date, unless further policy action is taken to extend the law. A policy which has not achieved its mandate does not continue ad finitum. The AMPHORA study group is a forum which can remind both readers and relevant EU policy makers about this important tool. The study did not relate to this policy issue, option, and opportunity which is responsive to social fluidity and change. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_provision downloaded 6/4/14
13 The reader is referred to: Discussion in “Trends in consumption…An uncertainty perspective” (Allamani Olimpi et al, in this SUM Special Issue): “One of the aims of the AMPHORA project was to demonstrate the relevance of the impact of sociodemographic and economic factors in a country (Allamani, Voller, Decarli et al., 2011; AMPHORA 2013; Allamani, Voller, Pepe et al., 2014, and the papers in this special issue). However, other aspects can be identified, which were only partially taken into account by the AMPHORA study: factors of migration, religious, and political, major socio-political events—“big events”—and cultural activities.”
14 What types of data are needed, and useable, to determine restrictive, laissez faire and case by case drinking policies in environments which range from local, micro areas, to more macro regional-national entities to mega creations such as a European Community, being sensitive to rural, urban, and megalopolis dimensions and diversities?
15 If a focus of public (drinking) policies is to affect individual and systemic harm reduction, quality-of-life, well-being and existing existential disparities such data could be important particularly given the diversities of the European Community.
16 Changing “Europe”—of whatever dimensions or memberships—from being a “homogenized” geographical continent into being and functioning as a viable community is not just a semantic outcome. The reader is asked to consider that taxonomies, whatever their basis, use and generalizability, may suffer from a built—in human frailty; while we increasingly acknowledge the “heterogeneity” and diversity of groups we all too often “homogenize” the very same groups. The limitations of language structure, needed concept availability and accessibility (Benzon and Hays, Citation1990) and stake holder's agendas are just part of what facilitates this process. Not keeping a necessary awareness of both “identity,” “drinking,” and “not drinking” as being already noted dynamic, complex, nonlinear, multi-dimensional, bounded, etc. processes, can seriously interfere with planning, implementation, and assessment of needed interventions, including alcoholic beverage drinking control policies. These considerations were not reported as being part of the AMPHORA study research design planning. This issue is not being raised as a methodological criticism—they might not have been selected, for example, because of resource limitations (funding, time, theory dimensions. etc.)—but rather as a caveat, and potential guideline for consideration of future factor selection criteria.
17 The dimensions and demands of data (what we successfully collect and choose to focus on, whatever their relevance, reliability, validity, etc.), information (which enables “ knowing”), and knowledge (which denotes understanding) are more often-then-not inadequately considered in research planning and implementation, transmission in articles, books, lectures, etc. (Results, Discussion, Study Limitations, Conclusions, and Future Needed Research) and in the actual use of the study and its findings for a range of needed, not needed and even irrelevant interventions by a range of influencing known, unknown, and unknowable individual and systemic stakeholders with their operationalized public, misleading, and even hidden agendas and goals with, for and against targeted populations, as well as for “the greater good,” and who manifest levels and qualities of resources, power, active engagement complacency as well as condition(s) of co-optation. Traditionally, in people-research the sample is noted with a selective list of demographics (i.e. age, gender, ethnicity, religion, education, etc.) without a description of the person's resources (capital, abilities, skills, etc.) as well as limitations which could be/are relevant to their quality and level of daily adaptation and functioning in a range of roles, networks, contexts, situations, and environments and the concepts/processes being studied. Likewise, in “alcohol policy” research-selected “demographics” are at times noted (i.e., a country's history, drinking traditions, and patterns) as they have been in Plant et al., and Świątkiewicz et al. in this Special Issue. But without helping the reader to be aware of and to consider relevant individual and systemic stakeholders as well as relevant “big events” such traditionalized demographics, when they actually are noted,” are not sufficient. For example, political scientist Schrad has posited that “vodka politics” is intrinsic to understanding Russian/Soviet history and its functioning. From the 16th century on Russia's leaders began to monopolize vodka as a keystone of Russian state finance, as well as being a powerful tool for controlling the country's peasants and workers, as well as members of political inner circles. Both Ivan the Terrible and Josef Stalin forced their underlings to constant drunkenness in order to keep them off balance and to control potential plots or dissent. Russia's controlling-stakeholders’ policy of using and relying on vodka as an “enslaving spirit” was so ingrained that attempts at its prohibition and increased regulation generally backfired. What is the likelihood that readers will be referred to this type of qualitative material when qualitative data is presented noting that Russia's rampant alcoholism has sunk Russian life expectancy to the lowest in Europe. Schrad, M.L. (2013) Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State.NY: Oxford University Press.
18 Religion and religiosity, noted in thtp://amphoraproject.net/w2box/data/Deliverables/AMPHORA_WP3_D3.2.pdf, but not considered in depth, in this issues’ country reports (Netherlands, Knibbe et al, and Italy, Allaman et al) indicate the usual documentation of religious denomination (identification as a…) and indices of participation in religious rites, services, holidays, etc., or not, (frequency) but did not explore the potential for the growth of the post WWII phenomena of spirituality as well as religious fundamentalism—however, these are defined-within increasingly secularized daily living for people with more leisure time and longer life expectancies, in an experienced diminishing, time and distance globalizing world, among other unplanned changes, to influence alcoholic beverage drinking patterns, functions, nondrinking and being, or not being, for example, law abiding citizens.
19 The reification and deification of “the scientific method”, its assessment techniques and its secular mantra-prayer—evidence-informed—has all-too-often resulted in confusing a range of research-quoted “facts” which are believed and often serve as the stimulus for legislating drinking control policies, anchoring them, and/or serving as institutionalized barriers to making viable and needed changes. These include: truthiness:”—“the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.” Word of the Year in 2005, according to the American Dialect Society, and which was popularized by Stephen Colbert n the first episode of “The Colbert Report.”proofiness: “the art of using bogus mathematical arguments to prove something that you know in your heart is true—even when it's not.” Charles Seife (Citation2010) Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception, NY: Viking Adult infopinion—presenting and/or mingling unreliable and misleading opinion as validated information. For example, a policymaker in a country in which methadone is illegal and thus methadone treatment is not possible, when challenged by the findings of the efficacy of more than 40 years of validated research noted: “We have our own literature.” “personal truths”—a dynamic human process which enables the selective acceptance of reality.Zombie ideas—a proposition, thesis, idea, or explanation that has been thoroughly refuted by analysis and evidence, and should be dead—but won't stay dead because it serves the needs, purposes, issues, objectives of influencing stakeholders, appeals to prejudices, or both. Ormerod, Paul, (2005) Why most things fail: Evolution, extinction and economics. Faber & Faber, UK; Miller, Matt, (2010) The tyranny of dead ideas; New York: Henry Holt & Co. Factoids—invented, unverified, or inaccurate information that is transmitted-presented as being factual, and which can be, often is, then accepted as true because of frequent repetition.
20 This term, created by the 20th century by American sociologist Robert Merton, describes three broad types of unanticipated-unplanned for-unintended types of consequences. http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Unintended_consequences downloaded 5/8/14 : (1) positive benefit (people, who supplied illegal alcohol during Prohibition to the United States, became very wealthy philanthropists and contributed to creating and maintaining health and educational institutions); (2) a negative, unexpected outcome—which may or may not result in addition to the planned policy effect—(supplying illicit alcoholic beverages by criminals and gangs, which were not organized prior to Prohibition, resulted in what is now organized crime. (3) a “perverse” effect, contrary to what was originally intended in which the policy solution achieved is worse than the original problem. A tragic policy example of this resulted when US federal authorities ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States which were often stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. This planned prevention policy was designed to frighten people into stopping their illicit drinking. By the time the 13-year Prohibition policy ended in 1933, the planned federal policy—poisoning-program-« the chemist's war on drinking» had killed at least 10,000 people. (Deborah Blum, 2010), The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. NY: Penguin Press.)
21 The term “Hawthorne effect,” coined in 1950 by Henry A. Landsberger, has been used to identify any type of short-lived increase in productivity. It is derived from experiments implemented from 1924 to 1932 at the Hawthorne Works, a Western Electric factory outside of Chicago. The study was designed to see if workers would become more productive in planned higher or lower levels of light. The workers’ productivity seemed to improve for short periods when changes were made, and slumped when the study ended. Additional planned changes such as maintaining clean work stations, clearing floors of obstacles, and relocating workstations resulted in increased productivity for short periods. The workers’ output was interpreted as being due to their increased motivation because they felt that increased attention and interest was being given to them—an unplanned factor albeit a planned temporary experimental policy. n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect downloaded 5/8/14.